SecretAgentMan's Dossier

A Few of My Favorite Things

-- The Dyson DC14 Series vacuum cleaners. Been using one for a year in our house. It works as advertised, and then some. The canister's easy to remove and clean, too.

-- QuikTrip convenience stores. They're not where I live, but I used to live near them. Clean, well-lit, handy. And their line of prepackaged food is the best of any gas station I've tried. (Did I mention I'm supposed to die when I'm 58?). They had one item, an extra-spicy burrito, which was really a futurist's take on the burrito. I miss that burrito a lot, and they don't sell by mail.

-- The Bose wave radio. These heiffers are expensive, but you will receive full satisfaction for every dime, I promise. It does jazz and classical music proud.

-- Silva Screen Records. They make lots of soundtracks, and I really like soundtracks. I'm listening to one of their CDs now -- the soundtrack to Lion in Winter and Mary, Queen of Scots. I'm especially fond of the last track's "But Not Through My Realm," which suggests all the bright promise of the age. (Lion's, "The Lion in Winter" is thrilling too).

-- The old dollar bills with Federal Reserve seals. I liked looking at a bill and wondering how it got from L to G.

-- The new Battlestar Galactica series on the SciFi Channel. They've taken the cheesy old series and done something elegant and edgy with it. It's still on it's foal's legs, however, and only time will tell if it can scale the heights to where Star Trek DS9 and Babylon5 have already planted their flags.

-- Netflix. This is a real deal, guys. You pay ‘em X per month and you've got 3, 5, even 7 DVDs picked from an impressive archive (including new releases) to watch at home. They are shipped quickly, and returned and logged in quickly. (They don't cheat by "waiting" in transit times, they really do try for and achieve a quick turn-around). I got a cracked DVD once and emailed them, half expecting to be told that their computer says it left in fine condition and so I owe them the full retail price of a DVD. (In other words, I expected the "Blockbuster" treatment). Nope, they just sent me another one right away and asked me to mail my broken disk back. No late fees. Ever. That's good, because I like to watch a good movie over and over again. You should try it, and if you do, tell ‘em Mark Shea sent you, because I'm sure he gets kickbacks.

-- The LAV-25 It's one of those things that looks so much like what it does that you can't not like it.